The study and use of fiction in interdisciplinary fields such as Narrative Medicine, Empathy Studies, and Literary Ethics point to a renewed interest in the "use-value" of literary texts. This interest is supported by a growing body of research in the social and neuro-sciences elucidating the effects of reading on the human brain and of fictional texts on readers' beliefs and behavior. At the same time, debates about the value of the liberal arts call into question why we read literature and what role it plays in shaping students' critical, ethical, and emotional faculties.

This panel seeks papers that examine the use of fictional narratives as pedagogical practice in diverse disciplines within undergraduate curriculum. We are particularly interested in papers that examine fiction as a means to achieve non-literary outcomes, either within or outside of the traditional literature classroom. We welcome theoretical or research-based explorations of the subject as well as papers that draw from specific pedagogical projects in the undergraduate classroom. Possible topics include but are not limited to: empathy and pedagogy, narrative medicine in the undergraduate classroom, developing ethics through literature, literature and citizenship, incorporating fiction into the non-literature classroom, and/or interdisciplinary teaching praxes.

Email 250-500 word abstracts and all other inquiries to Rosemary Weatherston (weatherr@udmercy.edu).